New Product :: Summer 1 Backgrounds & Alphabets

If you've been looking for a way to spice up some of your TeachersPayTeachers or homemade classroom activities, check out my new Summer Digital Background Pack!  It includes 30 different 12" x 12" backgrounds in PNG format, so they can be scaled to fit any sized project. And because you're all awesome, loyal blog readers, you can get 2 of them for free!





 

Another thing I've been playing around with is designing clipart letters. I wanted some letters to match all the backgrounds for new products, but also that could be used for bulletin boards. So, here they are!



It contains 10 different patterned alphabets, for a total of 260 letters. Each letter is a 6" x 6" png. Here's one of the alphabets for free! Just click the "A" below to download the entire alphabet as a .zip file! After you're taken to Google Drive, just click "file" --> "download" and you're good to go! For the rest of the alphabets, click the image above!



 

Enjoy!

 

Tips & Tricks :: Visuals for Students with Autism

One of the most effective interventions for students with Autism is using visuals. Yet whether your school district uses PECS, Boardmaker, Microsoft Office Clipart, or my personal favorite...Google Images, the process of searching for and resizing images can easily eat a big chunk out of your day.

And since none of us have lots and lots of time laying around, I was really excited when a special education teacher in our district shared this site with me! It's called ConnectAbility and on the site there's an awesome tool called Visuals Engine. The Visuals Engine contains thousands of images you can choose, and what I really love is that they're REAL images. Then, you can select page layouts of 1, 2, 4, 6, 12, or 16 images per page - the site automatically resizes all your images to be the same size! You can also add in whatever text you want to accompany your images (or leave it blank). After you create your page of visuals you can choose to either print the page or save it as a PDF. There's nothing worse than spending all your time making visuals for a student only to have them lose all the pieces by Friday! Since you can save your work super easily, it can be a huge time saver.

Here's a page I made with 12 images per page. This took me less than 2 minutes!

Hopefully this will help you save a few minutes while allowing you to make great visuals for your students!

Enjoy!

New Product :: Spring Backgrounds

If you've been looking for a way to spice up some of your TeachersPayTeachers or homemade classroom activities, check out my new Spring Digital Background Pack!  It includes 30 different 12" x 12" backgrounds in PNG format, so they can be scaled to fit any sized project. And because you're all awesome, loyal blog readers, you can get 2 of them for free!

Enjoy :)

New Product :: Colored Backgrounds

I've been taking a break recently from making counseling products, and instead and have working on lots and lots of colorful backgrounds! (Don't worry, there'll be more counseling, social work, and special ed. stuff up in the near future.) So if you've been looking to brighten up some of your digital scrapbooks, TeachersPayTeachers products, or classroom activities, check out all the new things I have for you!  They're available in my TpT or Etsy stores, so you can shop wherever's easiest for you. Each color-coded pack includes 32 different 12" x 12" backgrounds in PNG format, so they can be scaled to fit any sized project.

Personal and commercial use ok! Click the images below to see the products and full terms of use.

Enjoy :)

Etsy Links:

      

      

      

TpT Links:

      

      

      

New Product :: Holiday Backgrounds

If you've been looking for a way to spice up some of your TeachersPayTeachers or homemade classroom activities, check out my new Holiday Digital Background Pack!  It includes 30 different 12" x 12" backgrounds in PNG format, so they can be scaled to fit any sized project. And because you're all awesome, loyal blog readers, you can get 2 of them for free!

Enjoy :)

New Product :: Small Dot Digital Backgrounds

If you've been looking for a way to spice up some of your TeachersPayTeachers or homemade classroom activities, check out my new Small Dot Background Bundle!  It includes 132 different backgrounds in PNG format, so they can be scaled to fit any sized project. It also matches my Chevron, Striped, Large Dot, and Medium Dot Backgrounds so you can have consistency in your projects! And because you're all awesome, loyal blog readers, you can get 3 of them for free!

Enjoy :)

New Product :: Medium Dot Digital Backgrounds

If you've been looking for a way to spice up some of your TeachersPayTeachers or homemade classroom activities, check out my new Medium Dot Background Bundle!  It includes 132 different backgrounds in PNG format, so they can be scaled to fit any sized project. It also matches my Chevron, Striped, and Large Dot Backgrounds so you can have consistency in your projects! And because you're all awesome, loyal blog readers, you can get 3 of them for free!

Enjoy :)

New Product :: Large Dot Digital Backgrounds

If you've been looking for a way to spice up some of your TeachersPayTeachers or homemade classroom activities, check out my new Large Dot Background Bundle!  It includes 132 different backgrounds in PNG format, so they can be scaled to fit any sized project. It also matches my Chevron and Striped Backgrounds so you can have consistency in your projects! And because you're all awesome, loyal blog readers, you can get 3 of them for free!

Enjoy :)

Tips & Tricks :: Using Creativity to Help Others!

One of the biggest obstacles I first faced when becoming a school social worker was that I literally started with office supplies and 2 books that my internship supervisor gave me. One of the schools I first worked in had a bunch of VHS movies (even though we were well into the 2000's) and super outdated materials, but nothing I felt would be helpful at ALL for students on my caseload. I mean, most of it looked like it hadn't been touched in years and had questions related to record players and type writers!

I quickly learned that if I wanted to have updated, attention-grabbing activities and resources for my students I had to either make them myself or spend a good portion of my paycheck paying a publishing company for some $50 activity books. So during my first several years, this is what I did....buying a bit, but making a ton!

Then, in September of last year I kept thinking..."wow, it would have been awesome if I could have had access to all the things other counselors have made and tested on their own kids!" Literally a week later (I'm not even kidding), one of my other social work friends asked me if I had heard of TeachersPayTeachers. I hadn't, but checked out their website later that evening. It was there that I came across thousands of free and paid resources that I could download directly onto my computer and use with my kids! Then, I thought, "Maybe I should try sharing some of my stuff!" I figured I could save others tons of time and maybe make a bit of pocket change too, so at the beginning of October, I opened my store...with something like 4 products.

Just a few short months later, I was making tons of supplemental income, which I could put right back into my classroom or help with my mortgage. And with each day that went by, I felt more and more proud that I'd be able to help out so many other teachers, counselors, and SLP's, while saving them precious time and energy that they could then pour into their kids. Not only could I impact the 70 kids I see each week, but I help reach thousands of kids all around the world each day!

So instead of spending $30 on an activity book and using 3 or 4 pages out of it, you can look through the thousands of resources on TpT, read user reviews, ask the creator questions, and download it instantly. How awesome is that!? Here's the only problem: there's not a ton of us social work/counseling types!



Well, consider this your invitation! If you use my referral link here, you can sign up for a free account and get ready to buy or sell resources you think will be helpful to others! You can spend as much or as little time as you'd like and TpT handles all of the transaction. Your only time commitment is whatever it takes to make your products and upload them to their site. Then you're done!

Have questions? Feel free to leave them in the comments below! I'd love to help you out :) Already a member of TpT? You can link your counseling/social work-related store in the comments as well!

Enjoy and happy creating!